UnFictionalUnbelievably true stories of chance encounters that changed the world. A pair of mail-order shoes that led to the film The Outsiders. A secret road to a California paradise. The day LA and smog first met. Stories that will stick in your head like a memory. It’s UnFictional, hosted by Bob Carlson.

The DocumentThe Document is a new kind of mash-up between documentaries and radio. It goes beyond clips and interviews, mining great stories from the raw footage of documentaries present, past and in-progress. A new episode is available every other Wednesday on iTunes and wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

To the PointA weekly reality-check on the issues Americans care about most. Host Warren Olney draws on his decades of experience to explore the people and issues shaping – and disrupting - our world. How did everything change so fast? Where are we headed? The conversations are informal, edgy and always informative. If Warren's asking, you want to know the answer.

FROM THIS EPISODE

This is the story of a barber named Vaughn Hood, who runs a salon with his wife in St Johnsbury, Vermont. He happened to meet the radio producer Erica Heilman, who produces an excellent podcast called Rumble Strip Vermont. Like one does with a barber, they started talking. He learned to cut hair in Detroit Michigan, but soon he was drafted as 118-pound recruit, and sent into the Vietnam war. He was a sergeant in a company where hardly anyone would come back alive. He was decorated with honors after his tour, but he also came back with physical and emotional scars from the brutality and betrayals he he experienced. However, it was at the very worst moment, during one of darkest times after he came home, that he somehow found a way to come out of it, a better barber and a better man.

An American Life was produced by Erica Heilman and Larry Massett. It was originally produced for the podcast Rumble Strip Vermont. If you should ever find yourself in Northern Vermont in need of a hair cut, you can visit Jaboh Too in St. Johnsbury, where Vaughn Hood works with his wife Bev.